You have a really bad cold, and you find yourself sniffling into a handkerchief. Your pocket has a dark blue box with a green lid. And your box of meds has a few lozenges. We’re willing to bet that there’s only one brand on your mind right now.
____ ki goli loh, Khich khich door karo.
What started as a solution to cure a son’s cold, became a nation’s go-to product every time that khich khich hit us, and the moment we see the green logo and the blue dabba, we know we now have relief.
But why is this so? What makes us trust a brand?
That green logo and the perennially unchanged Vicks dabba stand for more than their functions; they are now symbols of trust, relief, and reliability, much like a mother’s hand on your forehead when you are under the weather.
Developing such trust was definitely not luck. Let’s see how the humble dabba aided trust.
Have we ever struggled to open a Vicks dabba and apply it? The container was designed to be round to keep access easy and uncomplicated, especially when someone is feeling under the weather. Simplicity is not just about costs; it’s about context. It’s about the things you don’t cry out about but think about well enough to make a difference.
The color plays a significant role here too. According to a study by marketing professor Satyendra Singh,”Consistent use of color can increase brand recognition by 80%.”
In the case of Vicks, the green symbolizes health, and the blue, trust and reliability.
Be it their Vicks drops, Inhalers, or Lozenges, all come in different sizes but what remains the same is a blue container and a green logo. (How many of you noticed the versions of Vaporub with a red lid now?)
Let’s ask ourselves another question, when was the last time we checked the writings on the container of a Vicks bottle? We probably check it for a product we haven’t used much, a product we don’t “Trust”.
With Vicks on the other hand, it’s just the blue container and the green logo, isn’t it?
On the other hand, imagine if the Vicks bottle was in yellow and red, or worse, changed once every few years. Forget buying it; our chances of even recognizing it would come down drastically.
That has not stopped them from making a red or pink lid for the Vicks dabba, as long as the blue and green facets of their packaging remained unchanged.
This is precisely why they have remained consistent with their packaging for over the last 30 years, and the shape of the container has remained the same since they started in 1894, making it close to 130 years of the same packaging.
With over 3 decades of the iconic blue and green, they haven’t just made Vicks a success story, they made it the resolute leader in their market segment.
Much like any other legend, they kept it simple, unchanged— just like the feeling of mom’s hand on our forehead.